IIT- I director denies clearing air on anomaly allegations

Indore: Director of the Indian Institute of Technology- Indore Prof Pradeep Mathur has decided to remain non- committal on the charges of irregularities labeled against him by former deputy director AS Khanna.

“ I’ll not like to comment on remarks of a person, who is not working with the institute… I don’t want to tarnish anybody’s image,” Prof Mathur told reporters when asked his response to the allegations lodged against him by Prof Khanna.

Prof Khanna had recently alleged that rules and regulations were being butchered by Prof Mathur on many fronts including appointments of faculty and staff, buying costly equipment, computers and furniture being bought in a highly arbitrary manner, etc.

He also stated that the IITIndore Director was running the institute like a ‘ dictator’. When reporters tried to get his side on the allegations, Prof Mathur sidestepped the query.

On the on- going campus placements, the IIT Director said that nearly 70 per cent students of the maiden batch had been picked up and hoped that the rest would also get job offers in days to come.

The campus placements at the institute are witnessing poor response from the corporate world due to adverse market conditions.

On a query pertaining to increase in seats of BTech programmes, Prof Mathur said that the institute was not entertaining thoughts of increasing seats as of now.

“ Since we are running out of temporary campuses with little space for expansion, we are not thinking of hiking the intake. Once we are in our own campus which is likely to come up by 2014 or 2015, the idea of increasing seats would be contemplated.”

IIT’s iconic structure to be LRC

Citing a key master plan of the proposed campus of the IIT Indore in Simrol, Prof Mathur said that the campus would have an iconic structure in form of Learning Resource Centre ( LRC) which will be one of its kind buildings following its architecture.

“ Unlike a regular library, this centre will foster inter- disciplinary concept. Here, students and scholars of different disciplines will gather and exchange thoughts.” The director also pressed for fostering interdisciplinary research. Citing achievements of the institute, he stated that the institute has to its credit 300 publications in international journals in last four years.

80 teachers against 90 posts

Prof Mathur stated that unlike other new IITs, the elite technical institute of Indore has maximum number of teachers. “ Against sanctioned posts of 90, we have nearly 80 teachers.” Prof Mathur claimed that the facilities available at the institute attracted academicians.

“ We even succeeded in bringing back some good teachers to the country from abroad.” They along with scholars are making optimum use of the facilities at the institute. He stated that people from other IITs even visit IIT Indore to use its facilities.

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